Chapter Twenty

Before Willa could hash out what Blue had meant by that odd statement, he’d hauled her up, scooted down, and dropped her on his face.

“Wait, I—”

“Hmm?” He was pressing his lips against her body, nuzzling against her opening, and making a rumbling sound in his chest she decided was chuckling.

And she couldn’t move, at least not without some awkwardness. He had his arms wound around her thighs and she was no match against a Coyote dominant’s strength.

“Sometimes, I wonder who invented this move.” His facial scruff tickled hidden, soft flesh and a squeaking noise fell out of her mouth. “I mean, how’d that come about? Couple of bored folks laying around face-to-crotch and one decides, hey, that looks like it’d be fun to tickle with my tongue?”

“I really don’t want to be ti—”

He wasn’t tickling.

Willa would have launched herself off the bed if it weren’t for her hasty grip of the headboard.

Blue was making long, slow strokes of his tongue against her crease, teasing her open without use of his hands, and she was glad he didn’t have his hands. There was only so much sensation she could tolerate at once.

“Oh my.” She leaned her head against the cool headboard and closed her eyes.

He was teasing beneath the hood, every graze of his tongue making her belly contract and breath catch. Every soft press made her body clench.

Felt amazing, though, once she could compartmentalize the sensations from her nervousness. She didn’t like being so nervous, but at least he knew.

At least he understood.

He pulled the whole bud into his mouth and sucked, lightly at first, and then harder.

“Oh my goodness.”

She realized she was edging away when the dull ache of his fingertips into her thighs registered. He was pulling her against his face and drumming his tongue against the little bundle of nerves she’d always explored with such tentativeness. There was nothing tentative about Blue Shapely. He knew what he wanted and apparently knew what she needed, too.

When he broke his rhythm, perhaps to catch a breath, she didn’t want the sensation to go away, so she rocked against his tongue, keeping up the delicious pressure—striving for that bright burst of sensation she always shied away from. But if it was happening with him, maybe she’d been doing it right. Maybe she should have trusted what she was feeling all along. There was no shame in self-pleasuring, and she’d been far too old before she’d realized that.

“Is that what you like?” he murmured against her without missing a beat, and neither did she. Holding a rhythm was one of the few things she was good at and kept grinding against his mouth, swallowing down her moans again and again so King didn’t hear and run to the door, barking and scratching. “Is that how I’ll be getting you to sleep every night from here on out?”

“Yes!”

She didn’t immediately realize the ramifications of her response, but let the worry quickly fall away. She was surfing on a wave of pleasure unlike anything she’d ever felt before and wanted to ride it all the way to the end.

She sank her teeth into her lip, curled her toes into the bed, and held on to the headboard as Blue licked, probed, and sucked, and she ground against him.

She felt as though something hot and nutritive unfurled in her belly, lashing much-needed heat into her shaking legs and making her heart rush faster.

There was clarity in her brain as her moan fell out of her mouth. Clear thoughts of purpose and routine and partnership, and an underlying sense of victory.

She could sleep. She could rest.

“My.” Panting, and with shaking arms, she pushed slowly away from the headboard and dragged her tongue across her dry lips.

Blue unwound his arms from her legs and settled her next to him. She was on the wrong side of the bed, but that didn’t matter.

She was naked and the covers weren’t within easy reach, but that didn’t matter, either.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and let her head loll toward him. “Should I say something? What’s the protocol?”

“The best compliment is a repeat invitation.”

“Oh. Well, that’s fine, then.”

Her consciousness drifted away on the sounds of his deep chuckle.

• • •

“Willa. Sweetheart.”

Willa groaned and burrowed closer against the warm obstacle beside her. She hated that—how whenever she’d just started experiencing the kind of orgiastic sleep that put smiles on people’s faces all day long, something woke her up.

“Go away,” she murmured.

A chuckle.

A male chuckle.

“I’m not dreaming, am I?” she asked with a scowl.

“You could be. What are you seeing?”

“Blue in my bed.”

“That’s right. Fortunately, that old saying about sleeping with dogs will get you fleas isn’t always true.”

Sitting up slowly, she rubbed her eyes. He wound an arm around her hips.

Her naked hips.

“Oh no.”

He could see more in the light, but a glance back at him revealed he wasn’t even looking. He was holding his phone up to his face, swiping across the screen with his thumb. Hair ruffled. Scruff dark and sexy. T-shirt sullied with a wet spot on his chest that she suspected she’d made with her mouth.

“Oh no,” she repeated.

“It’s six now,” he said levelly. “Didn’t know what time you needed to leave for work.”

An unbidden sigh escaped her lips. “I want to sleep.”

“And I want you to sleep. I suspect you need a lot more of it, but you’ll have to catch up over the weekend.”

The statement was so matter of fact that she didn’t doubt that he’d personally facilitate the rejuvenation.

She waited for the lash of panic to coil through her, but she didn’t feel one. Just certainty. An unfamiliar feeling for her.

Groaning, she nudged the covers down, sneaking a peek at Blue’s partially uncovered abs. His shirt had ridden up. That wasn’t the only thing that was up. He was shamelessly erect beneath the covers and making no effort to shift his maleness into a more discreet position.

She could have looked away, but she was too curious—wondering what he looked like with the covers pulled away.

“Side effect of cuddling,” he muttered.

He’d set down his phone, and she hadn’t noticed because she was too busy ogling his crotch, apparently.

Busted.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned again.

“You can look if you want,” he said.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Offer stands if you change your mind later.”

“Brazen, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess I am sometimes. Helps me help others get shit done.”

“And what should I be doing?”

He shrugged and put on that crooked grin that was all trouble. “Getting ready for work. Get something to eat first. I’ll walk King for you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I choose to.” He pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek that managed to be both sweet and then unexpectedly salacious when he swiped his tongue across her skin.

Then he got up and sauntered to the door, cocky and confident, and curiously at-home.

King, at attention in the hallway, let out an indignant woof when Blue opened the door.

“Same to you, jerk,” Blue told him and disappeared to the hall with King at his heels.

“Be nice to my dog,” she called after him.

“Anything you want, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

The endearment had always seemed so condescending when men used it on her. For some reason, not anymore. Not from Blue.